It was one of the most emotional moments Diddly Squat fans have experienced in recent memory: watching Arya, Jeremy Clarkson’s fox-red Labrador, say goodbye to her puppies as they left, one by one, for their new forever homes, all set to the unmistakably tear-jerking strains of James Blunt’s “Goodbye My Lover.” Clarkson himself admitted at the time how sad it was to watch them go. But as it turns out, not every puppy from that famous litter actually left.
The story begins back in July, when Arya gave birth to 11 puppies in what Clarkson cheerfully declared his unexpected talent for midwifery, delivering the litter himself while England’s Lionesses were busy winning the Euros. It was a genuinely joyful moment for Diddly Squat, arriving amid an otherwise difficult stretch for the farm. That joy was tempered days later, though, when one of the puppies, a pup named Mr Grey, sadly passed away, a loss shared publicly by Lisa Hogan around the same devastating week that Diddly Squat first discovered its bovine TB outbreak.
Two months on, the surviving pups were ready to head off to their respective new families, a bittersweet milestone Clarkson and Hogan documented with visible emotion on social media. But among the goodbyes, one small addition to the Diddly Squat family quietly made a much shorter journey: staying exactly where she was.
Meet Margarey, the fox-red Labrador puppy who never actually left the farm. Clarkson introduced her to fans with a simple, warm caption alongside a photo of himself cradling the pup, and the reaction was immediate, with comments flooding in expressing pure delight at the new permanent addition. It’s a small, genuinely heartening footnote to a litter that had already given fans plenty of emotional whiplash across just a couple of months, from delighted celebration, to genuine grief, to a wave of goodbyes, and finally, one puppy who simply gets to stay.
Margarey joins an already well-established Diddly Squat canine lineup. Sansa and Arya, both fox-red Labrador Retrievers named after Game of Thrones characters, have long been fan favourites in their own right, regularly featuring in the show’s more chaotic, unscripted moments and building loyal followings of their own on social media. With Margarey now settling in as the newest member of that trio, fans have another reason to keep watching Diddly Squat’s Instagram closely for whatever mischief the growing dog pack gets up to next.
The timing of the announcement also arrived amid an otherwise stressful stretch for the wider Diddly Squat operation, coming shortly after Clarkson revealed he’d had to trawl through CCTV footage at The Farmer’s Dog to address a customer compensation claim. Against that backdrop of business headaches and bureaucratic frustration, a simple photo of a new puppy settling permanently into the family clearly landed exactly the way Clarkson likely intended: as a small, genuine reminder of the good stuff, tucked in among everything else.
For a show, and a public figure, that’s built so much of its emotional core around genuine, often messy honesty, whether it’s cancer diagnoses, TB lockdowns, or council disputes, moments like Margarey staying home serve as a welcome, uncomplicated bright spot. Sometimes, the best news really is just a puppy who gets to stay.
